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Trip To Moon
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Trip To Moon (Review)

February 26, 2012By

Trip to Moon

aka Chand Par Chadayee

1967
Written by Dr. P. Balakrishnan and T.R. Sundaram
Directed by T.P. Sundaram

Trip to Moon
How you boys like my new goldfish bowl?

Trip to Moon is another Dara Singh adventure, as the famous wrestler has become far too manly and powerful to be confined to foes just upon Earth, he has to search the stars for new enemies. Luckily the Moon and Mars both contain a sizeable amount of wrestlers and monsters for him to battle with, and then there is the little matter of the love of a Princess and adverting war between the Moon and Mars. As we get an experience that’s obviously heavily influenced by serials like Flash Gordon, the audience comes along for the ride in one of the few instances of Indian science fiction film. It’s also a bonus entry into the MOSS (Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit) Conspiracy Big Muscle Tussle, because I am awesome like that.

Trip to Moon
Rise of the Moon of the Apes!

Trip to Moon has several mysteries surrounding it. Though it was released in 1967, one of the actors – S. Nazir who plays a kidnapped scientist in the beginning – died earlier. He’s even listed as deceased in the credits. Theories abound as to when Trip to Moon was actually filmed, with guesses ranging from 1963-1967 – though it is possible additional scenes were added later. So why did it take so long for Trip to Moon to hit Indian theaters, if that was the case? Was it more distribution problems similar to what drove producers to start making stunt films in the first place, or was there something else going on? Or are these rumors all untrue and just made up by people with websites? Perhaps if you know Dara Singh, you can ask him. Tell him TarsTarkas.NET sent you! Then he won’t punch you as hard for bothering him.

Trip to Moon
Only in India do you get crowd scenes with Devo and a herd of Phantoms from Krankor…

Much like his other films King Kong and Samson, although he’s given a character and backstory, Dara Singh is just Dara Singh. Much like how Arnold Schwarzenegger is Arnold in every movie, even if he is a robot or a believer in Free Mars. By now Dara is headlining films himself, no need for pretty boys to share the spotlight. He still has a comic relief guy, because you can’t escape their goofy grasps. Dara’s wrestling opponents are less billed than before, and though some make appearances, many are under layers of makeup or costumes playing various space monsters. There is a feeling in the air that Trip to Moon is using whatever costumes the studio had lying around for use, along with possibly monster costumes.

Trip to Moon
It’s lonely out in space on such a timeless flight

The opening credits are filled with what look like stock scifi paintings as the credits role. Despite the trappings, there are relatively few Indian science fiction films. Others known or suspected to be (besides mythologicals or super hero films) include Dara Singh’s other film Rocket Tarzan (1963), Wahan Ke Log (1967), Rocket Girl (1962), Flying Circus (1965 – though that just has a robot), Flying Man (1965), Miss Chaalbaaz (1961), Atom Bomb (1949, dir. Homi Wadia), Kalai Arasi (1963), and Aditya 369 (1991). Thank MBarnum of Pedro the Ape Bomb for some of these titles. The either missing of unavailable status of many of those films prevents a good overview of older Indian science fiction. The more modern films are better known – Koi Mil Gaya, Krrish, Love Story 2050, Da.One, Aa Dekhen Zara, Endhiran (a Kollywood joint) and Krrish 2. But those are entries for new dawns and new days.

Trip to Moon
I’ll be He-Man, and you’ll be Bee-rah, Princess of Honeypots!

Yes, this unsubtitled, badly encoded vcd just doesn’t want us to know what is going on. But here at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

Captain Anand (Dara Singh) – Space Captain Anand is the greatest fighter on three worlds, what with his kicking butts on Earth, the Moon, and Mars. John Carter needs to watch out! I thought from the context that Anand’s father was among the scientists kidnapped by the Moon, but he never shows up so who knows. For more Dara Singh, don’t forget to check out King Kong, Samson, and the Dara Singh Infernal Brains podcast
Princess Shimoga (C. Ratna) – The stunning Princess of the Moon, who quickly takes a shine to Captain Anand and his seriousness. Her costume looks like a flight attendant’s costume, which is sort of weird in itself. I could find no information about actress Ratna aka C. Ratna.
Bhagu (Master Bhagwan) – Comic relief buddy of Dara Singh, who is like Wayne Knight meets Abbott and Costello. is Anand’s paternal cousin. I originally guessed his name was Foruk, and kind of wish it still was. Bhagu has a double who is the assistant of the King of Mars, Isabel
Balti (Rajrani) – The kidnapping Moon girl that takes a shine to Bhagu, because annoying dumpy guys are irresistible to fabulous moon babes. It’s a fact, Jack! Her name as Balti is a guess (a bad one), and the actress being Rajrani is also a guess (though more of process of elimination.)
Simi (Padma Khanna) – The other space girl who accompanies Balti on her trips to kidnap people and other tasks. She doesn’t get to marry on of the two main castmembers, for reasons that will become apparent as you watch. Padma Khanna (here billed simply as Padma) is a Hindi and Bhojpuri actress who was mostly active in the 60s-80s. She has recently directed her own Bhojpuri film and runs a dance studio and produces stage shows in New York/New Jersey.
Barahatu the King of Mars (Anwar Hussain) – The evil King of Mars Barahatu totally wants to marry the Princess of the Moon Shimoga, but he’s old and gross and evil, so she snubs him. So he just kidnaps her, risking a war to try to make her marry him. That just annoys her even more.
Robot (man in suit) – This robot shows up suddenly and starts fighting captain Anand, until another robot randomly walks in and then the robots fight.
Space Rhinoceros (men in suit) – Mars also features dangerous Space Rhinoceroses that will totally attack innocent wrestlers who are chasing after kidnapped princesses nearby.
Trip to Moon
Things went ugly quickly when a robot played 7 aces during Fizzbin
King Kong India
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

King Kong (1962 – Review)

February 18, 2012By

King Kong


1962
Written by Vishwanath Panday, Pandit Mathur, Mastji, and Majrooh Sultanpuri (lyrics)
Directed by Babubhai Mistry

Not that King Kong, there are no giant apes in this movie, though there are guys who sort of look like giant apes when you squint, or at least fat blogs. Nope, this is 1962s Indian epic King Kong, starring the great Dara Singh in his first starring role. You remember Dara Singh from Samson right? The Infernal Brains Podcast about Dara Singh? Well, if not, you now have a bunch of extra listening and reading to do! For the rest of us, this is an entry in the MOSS (Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit) Conspiracy Big Muscle Tussle, featuring dudes and chicks with muscles doing muscular things in muscular ways. Said muscular ways usually means punching many things. Click on the MOSS Page to see many more entries, as long as your roid rage is low enough you won’t Hulk Smash all our webpages. As for King Kong, let’s just say that there is a giant monster in the beginning of the film, but it’s all downhill from there!

Dara Singh was born in 1928 in the Punjab village of Dharmuchak. He wrestled in local tournaments while growing up, but went to Singapore to seek employment as a laborer. He ended up learning East Asian wrestling techniques – in addition to the Indian (and surrounding regions) technique called Pehlwani – and returned to India. With his brother Randhawa, the two became professional wrestlers and soared through the ranks. By the 1970s, Dara and his brother were the highest paid wrestlers in India, earning 30-40 times the going rate for bouts. Dara was also the “world champion” in the local circuits.
King Kong 1962
Prior to his lead role here, Dara Singh had been relegated to stunt work in films like Sangdil (1952), Pehli Jhalak (First Sight) (1955), and Jagga Daku (1959). In King Kong and many of his later films, Dara helped do the fight choreography, as he thought the usual Indian choreography didn’t look real enough. As Dara Singh comes from a lower caste, there was often trouble finding leading women who would appear with him. Besides Kum Kum from this film, his usual partner was Mumtaz (seen here in Samson) Dara’s lower caste status helped instill him as a hero of the common man, though his films usually had him suddenly discover his noble roots (as this one does.) After his movie career slowed down, Dara Singh gained a new generation of fans when he appeared in the 1980s tv series Ramayana playing Hanuman.

The movie’s title King Kong is even taken from wrestling. Though a reference to the giant ape, King Kong became a wrestling title, one which Dara Singh soon claimed, winning it off of stocky Hungarian wrestler Emile Czaja – who often went billed as King Kong (including his appearance in this film!) Dara winning the King Kong title gave him enough fame that director Babubhai Mistri decided he would be bankable as a leading man. The added fact that it was cheaper for people to buy movie tickets than to pay for wrestling tickets was just gravy. Due to distribution politics/drama, low-budget stunt films like King Kong were usually exhibited in rural areas, often with the director or star in attendance presenting the film.

Director Babubhai Mistri did effects work at Wadia Movietone, and directed many mythologicals in the 1950s (mythologicals being a genre of Indian cinema that does stories from the religious texts.) by by the 60s was unable to direct big picture films, thus he turned to the B movie circuit and making Dara Singh a star.

Like most surviving Dara Singh films, King Kong is available on badly encoded unsubtitled vcd with the craptastic video quality you expect. And the vcd has commercials on it..in the middle of the film! Luckily, a few Dara films have started to migrate to DVD, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some of his awesome stunt films on DVD soon…

As this is the inaugural Dara Singh starring flick, they didn’t trust him to headline the picture by his lonesome, so they threw in another character, the handsome swashbuckler type Badal (played by Chandrashekhar) There is also a comic relief sidekick for Badal. Comic relief sidekicks were so in vogue at this time, the evil warrior character Evil Guy also has his own comic relief sidekick. As you have probably noticed by some of the names, I haven’t figured them all out yet.

Jingu (Dara Singh) – A local warrior who lives with his mom, who has nicknamed him King Kong. His father is the disposed king, and he has a missing brother.
Radhi (Kum Kum) – The Princess’s maid and Jengu’s love interest. She does almost all the singing. This is Kum Kum’s lone Dara Singh co-starrer that I know about, she starred in B films and used that to get starring roles in big budget pictures.
Badal (Chandrashekhar as Chandra Shekhar) – Badal is the local handsome guy who hangs out with a Goofy Guy and crushes on the princess. He’s also the secret lost brother of Jingu.
Princess Rajkumari (Parveen Choudhary) – The Princess who falls for Badal when he saves her from slavers.
King Kong (Emile Czaja as King Kong) – The prior King Kong who is tossed out of the roll when Jingu proves himself the better man. Seeks revenge for his failure.
King Hingoo (Uma Dutt) – The evil king who disposed the prior king and now does evil stuff which is totally evil. Of course, we don’t actually see him doing much evil stuff, he just has some jerks working for him. But the dialogue probably mentions evil things that we don’t see…
Smoke Monster (Men in suit!) – YES!! The Smoke Monster is awesome, we demand more Smoke Monster! Too bad he dies five minutes into the film and the rest is people running around not fighting monsters. BOOOO!!

Mural
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Mural (Review)

February 15, 2012By

Mural

aka 畫壁

2011
Written by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Lau Ho-Leung, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, and Maria Wong Si-Man
Directed by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung and Danny Go Lam-Paau
Mural
Mural is another attempt from China to make bigger Hollywood-style pictures, which is both a good and a bad thing. It is good that money is being brought into make epic films. It is bad because the films being produced are all generic garbage. And as the money flows away from Hong Kong into the pack of upstart Mainland production companies, things are changing rapidly in both Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. But this review isn’t about that, it’s about Mural, a story about a guy who goes into a painting full of fairy women.
Mural
While Mural certainly looks nice, the story doesn’t hold up to the visuals and things become very bland. The visuals of creatures and monsters make good spectacles, even if the CGI isn’t up to par with Western films yet. Monsters and beauties are the two main attractions to Mural, there is enough of both you can let some things slide. Some good scenes and creativity in monster design help make certain points more memorable, but the underlying uninteresting characters and the obvious conclusion of the main love story cause things to not be so much a journey as just a trip through a museum.
Mural
Like Gordan Chan’s prior film Painted Skin, it is a tale from Pu Songling’s story collection Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. The tomb contains nearly 500 tales, and has been the basis for dozens of films and tv series, including the Chinese Ghost Story films.

There are far too many of the models/actresses/singers playing the fariy women to list them all in the Roll Call, but I should name drop a few, like model-actress Monica Mok Xiao-Qi, Xia Yi-Yao, and Bao Wen-Jing. And now we will never mention them again! Even Eric Tsang Chi-Wai shows up with ear extensions as a goofy monk.
Mural

Zhu Xiaolian (Deng Chao) – A scholar studying for government exams at the capital who runs into adventure while on his journey there. Zhu likes to speak big talk of responsibility and becoming a good person, his sense of justice propelling part of the plot. Deng Chao is also in Detective Dee.
Meng Longtan (Ngai Sing) – A thief who is caught trying to rob Zhu and his servant. Ends up joining him on his trip into the painting and marrying a good chunk of the fairies.
Hou Xia (Bao Bei-Er) – Zhu’s servant who spends most of the film following Zhu around like a puppy, though he does manage to grow a tad as a character.
Queen (Yan Ni) – The nameless vain Queen of the fairy realm. Her rants against men hint at a greater insanity and bitterness, living in a world of her own creation for years. Her dress is reminiscent of evil queens from Disney films. Yan Ni is also in All’s Well Ends Well 2011.
Shaoyao (Betty Sun Li) – The Queen’s main servant, who is disliked by the rest of the fairies due to her closeness with the Queen. Suffers from self-esteem issues. Betty Sun Li can also be seen in Kung Fu Cyborg.
Mudan (Zheng Shuang) – Carefree childish fairy who travels to the human world briefly and encounters Zhu, and is then punished for what she did. Zheng Shuang is a Mainland newcomer to film who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 2011. Since 2009, she has starred in several tv series and has been releasing albums.
Yunmei (Ada Liu Yan) – Fairy lady who both dates Rock Monsters and is married 2 times to Meng and then Hou Xia, both really without her consent. Ada Liu Yan (主播柳岩) is a tv hostess turned actress/singer who will look completely different if you find some of her old pageant photos, and is one of the few actresses honest about it.
Cuizhu (Xie Nan) – Mudan’s best friend and a carefree spirit, Zhu pretends marriage to her in order to stay in the fairy world and find out what happened to Mudan. Xie Nan is a TV host and anchorwoman turn Mandopop singer who debuted in 2010. She’s briefly in All’s Well Ends Well 2011
Golden Warrior (Andy On Chi-Kit) – Golden Warrior is the only male-looking character allowed in the fairy world, he transforms from a bronze owl to defend the realm. Has a longing for Shaoyao that is not reciprocated. Totally isn’t He-Man.

Mural

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

This Means War (Review)

February 14, 2012By

This Means War


2012
Written by Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg, and Marcus Gautesen
Directed by McG
This Means War
Captain Kirk and Captain Picard’s evil clone battle for the heart of Legally Blonde! Yes, once again Tars has sold out and seen a movie in advance for free. This time, it’s the romantic comedy This Means War, where once again secret spies date hot chicks who know nothing about it, until getting involved in whatever spy stuff is happening in the third act. The twist is there are TWO spy guys who both want the hot chick and compete to be the best of the best of the best. Sure, it’s by the numbers, predictable at points, filled with wacky hijinks, and the action scenes aren’t given enough budge to be memorable in the slightest, but is it good? Meh. There are a few scenes that are hilarious, but the rest of the film is a mess of boring, stupid, or generic. This Means War is never going to top True Lies in the action department, so it shouldn’t even bother. I did not see Knight and Day, but from the reviews the action at least seems continual. This Means War features long sequences of our heroes riding their desks at the office after the brief beginning fight until the last act, so the weight of the film rests entirely on the romantic aspect of the story. That would probably be okay if we hadn’t felt like we’d already seen everything before.
This Means War
FDR Foster and Tuck are CIA agents who in the opening sequence shoot up some bad guys and end up killing one brother of two, the second escaping and vowing revenge. We don’t know much about this guy except he’s bad, so forget about him. Tuck is a British CIA agent (whaaa?) who is divorced with a young son, while FDR is a playboy who has sex with anything that moves and anything that might move if it’s placed on a slope. As FDR’s wife is only hinted at dating again, but a boyfriend never presents himself as a threat, I can see the future clearer than the time I shoved crystal balls in my eyes and was banned from that Wiccan store downtown. Little do they know how many million$ I won from the lottery!
This Means War

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Evil Karate (Review)

February 12, 2012By

The Evil Karate

aka 鬼門太極

1971HKMDB Link
Written by Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong, Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung, Lin Yu-Yuan
Directed by Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong

The Evil Karate (鬼門太極) is a great Taiwanese kung fu fantasy with all the common revenge and secret kung fu instruction elements you need to ensure a simple but action-filled story. Taiwan’s martial arts spectacles focused on crazy action, and they weren’t afraid to have every character have a gimmick. This film is no exception, beyond every character having their own specific weapon, we have a lady who wears a snake (and uses it as a weapon), a guy who fights with a fishing pole, and everyone teleporting and zooming around in the trees like they’re flying squirrels. The not afraid to try new and fun things is part of the joys of Taiwanese kung fu films, and makes up for the often awful condition we have to view the treasures in. Even getting this in a subtitled print is a minor miracle, usually I’d be forced to deal with a substandard dub where everyone has a random British accent.

The Evil Karate is a mix of man-on-the-run/girl-fighter/revenge films, complete with a character whose talent seems to be getting everyone who helps him horribly murdered. Luckily, the villain is even more comically evil than you would think, and his pack of goons are pretty hilarious even as they die by the score. It is set in a kung fu fantasy world where people can fly, smash boulders, train at secret techniques from childhood, and evil gangs control vast territory for decades without anyone bothering to stop them except the now-grown children of people they murdered. But the real reason to bother with The Evil Karate doesn’t show up until almost halfway through the film, and that is actress Cheung Ching-Ching.

Cheung Ching-Ching was active for about a decade as a martial arts actress, kicking butt all over Taiwan in a variety of movies, most of which are either not available anywhere or only on beat up VHS tapes, bargain DVDs, and grey market specials. Which is sort of a shame, because she’s pretty good, and has a high-energy charisma that you want to see in a goofy film like this. The actress who plays the young Chen-chen (for around half the film) is also pretty good, and is really into all the physical work required for the job. I almost though this would turn into an Annoying Flying Kid movie, but thankfully we had a montage where she turned into Cheung Ching-Ching. Director Joseph Kuo helmed the two 18 Bronzemen films among his 63 films, most of which were done in the 60s and 70s.

No one does karate, evil or otherwise.

Chou Chen-Chen (Kai Pao Yu) – Little girl whose parents are murdered and is raised by Lo Tien Hung and trained for revenge. She grows up into…
Chou Chen-Chen (Cheung Ching-Ching) – The grown up Chen-Chen is now a master flyer, fighter, dart thrower, and kung fu girl. She kicks more ass by 6am than you do all day, unless you are also a kung fu girl who seeks revenge, of which we have several dozen as well on TarsTarkas.NET.
Lo Tien Hung (Shaw Luo-Hui) – Lo Tien Hung holds the secret of a jade manuscript that reveals the location of an awesome kung fu technique, and he gets many many MANY people killed over the course of the film because of this. If you see this guy coming, run away and take your entire family with you. He’s dangerous! Eventually trains Chen-chen to seek revenge, but not before getting the entire country murdered as the Seven Monsters seek him out. Shaw Luo-Hui is also in Ape Girl
Fisher (Kang Ming) – A fisherman who uses Fishing Pole Fu. The first time I’ve seen in used in film. Probably the last time, because Fishing Pole Fu isn’t very effective. One of Lo Tien Hung’s many dead helpers, along with Farmer Kung, Master, and Chen-chen’s family.
King Hades Yen (O Yau-Man) – Hades Yen is the Devil who gave Devil’s Gate the name. Often runs around with a gold face white hair. Leads the Seven Monsters Of Poison. Can survive multiple daggers shoved into his neck. O Yau-Man is also a big villain in The Dwarf Sorcerer.
Snake Lady (Kong Ching-Ha) – I never caught her character’s name, because the Seven Monsters of Poison weren’t granted names, only vague personality stereotypes. But she’s evil, has a pet snake, and is totally into poisoning people. Kong Ching-Ha also appears in The Eighteen Jade Arhats
Ghost’s Shadow (Gam Man Hei) – When the Seven Monsters of Devil’s Gate are incompetent, King Hades Yen outsources tracking duties to Ghost’s Shadow, who despite having a cool name also has cool tracking abilities. He’s like the Boba Fett of The Evil Karate. And like Boba Fett, he dies.

InBad, Movie Reviews

East Meets West 2011 (Review)

February 12, 2012By

East Meets West 2011

aka 東成西就2011 aka Eagle Shooting Heroes 2011

2011
Directed by Jeff Lau Chun-Wai

East Meets West 2011 is an update in tone of Jeff Lau’s 1993 film Eagle Shooting Heroes, a classic comedy film that boasted a huge cast (many of whom were borrowed from Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time, which was running over budget and needed another film to be made with the core cast to balance the books!) and has become one of the mainstay comedy films due to the crazy and energetic feel to the picture. East Meets West 2011 takes inspiration from that, transports the reincarnated gods to modern day, and adds super hero trappings and some philosophical discussion into the mix. And though it isn’t non-stop zaniness, it is still a good time and is one of my favorite recent Hong Kong films.

While Eagle Shooting Heroes/Ashes of Time are largely based on Jin Yong’s Condor Heroes trilogy, East Meets West 2011 instead takes from another of Jin Yong’s wuxia works, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. The eight major characters known as the Eight Heavenly Dragons are based on the eight races of non-human entities described in Buddhist cosmology, called Tianlong Babu (天龍八部) the “8 kinds of beings that protect the Dharma” The Eight Races are the Deva, Nāga, Yaksha, Asura, Garuda, Kinnara, Gandharva and Mahoraga. Tianlong 天龍 means Heaven Dragon, but can also translate to deva-nāga “Devas and Nāgas”, the 2 highest categories of tianlong. The lower 6 categories are: yecha 夜叉 “Yaksha; cannibalistic devils; nature spirits”, gantapo 乾闥婆 “Gandharva; half-ghost music masters”, axiuluo 阿修羅 “Asura; evil and violent demigods”, jialouluo 迦樓羅 “Garuda; golden bird-like demons that eat dragons”, jinnaluo 緊那羅 “Kinnara; half-human half-bird celestial music masters”, maholuluojia 摩睺羅迦 “Mahoraga; earthly snake spirits”. And, yes, I ganked all that from Wikipedia.

Jeff Lau’s films are almost always crazy awesome, and he’s very good at bringing Western elements into his work. Lau’s films often look more advanced than their counterparts from the same year, and hold up much longer than normal. His vision can take the simplest tale and give it a grand scope. Even the title of East Meets West 2011 shows the clash of Western and Eastern styles, with the Eastern gods taking up Western super hero visuals in a modern Hong Kong, while still being connected to the ancient past and Jade Emperors and all that jazz. Even the music comes from both the West and East, with a remake of Happy Together used several times, as well as a redo of the James Bond theme (this might be one of the first times I’ve heard the score legitimately used in an overseas film, as I’ve been spending too much time watching old genre films that have been ripping it off wholesale), but also Karen Mok songs.

It is almost impossible to discuss parts of this without spoilers, so I am declaring this review SPOILER FILLED. Don’t come crying to me if you keep reading and everything is ruined.

Sammi (Karen Mok Man-Wai) – Sammi is the burnt out non-love-believer who spends her day doing effects makeup at a haunted house where her father works. But things change when she meets Charles and this whole being an immortal thing happens. Sammi transforms into Ashura. Karen Mok has never looked more glamorous than when she’s flying around in Heavenly Dragon mode. Karen Mok pulls off the awesomely beautiful super hero outfit, as well as the schoolgirl outfit, and the goth outfit, and the normal attire. See Karen Mok in Task Force and Haunted Office.
Kenny Bee (Kenny Bee) – Kenny Bee plays Kenny Bee as Kenny Bee. And his involvement in his former band the Wynners is a plot point. He’s Sammi’s dad and is married to Scarlet. Kenny transforms into Naga.
Wen (William So Wing-Hong) – Wen is a super cabbie who wants to be actor, and spends the film trying to convince people of his acting skills and critiquing other actors. Wen transforms into Garuda.
Jade (Tan Wei-Wei) – A wannabe singer from an affluent family, Jade has an antagonistic relationship with her abusive and philandering father, and is often seen covered with soot. Jade transforms into Deva. Tan Wei-Wei is a singer who gained fame winning a televised singing competition.
Bing (Jaycee Chan Cho-Ming) – Bing transforms into Mahiraga, whose randomly determined form appears as deformed heroes from Hong Kong cinema: a one armed swordsman, someone from the Buddha’s Fist movies with a giant leg, and a hopping vampire. Jaycee Chan is also in Tracing Shadow.
Scarlet (Crystal Huang Yi) – Scarlet is a half crazy, fashioned obsessed spoiled young bride of Kenny, who was a classmate of his daughter Sammi. The two women have an antagonistic relationship because of this. Scarlet often is wearing different expensive and elaborate fashions. Scarlet transforms into Gandharva. Huang Yi is also in Treasure Inn.
Da Xiong (Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin) – A mute bun maker perpetually covered in flour. His wife has left him and his son, Xiaofang. Da Xiong transforms into Kinnara. Ekin Cheng is also in Future Cops.
Charles (Eason Chan Yik-Shun) – Charles is a ruthless hairdresser turned businessman. Can anyone melt his heart of stone? Charles transforms into Yaksha. His ever-present secretary is played by Stephy Tang Lai-Yan (All’s Well Ends Well 2011 and Nobody’s Perfect)

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